The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. Hell

[ 1 ] We must go far back in humanity’s quest to solve the mysteries of the world if we are to consider the origin of the two concepts that soon impose themselves on human beings when they approach these mysteries in a deeper sense—above all, in a spiritual sense: the two concepts of good and evil.

[ 2 ] Human thought will always seek to rise to the mysterious forces that, emanating from the spiritual world, determine and permeate our development. Time and again, we are confronted with the temptation, in the most varied forms, to link the beneficial forces of life—those that serve the well-being and progress of human development—with the destructive, repulsive, and inhibiting forces. Yet the intimate kinship that exists between these two forces—despite their seemingly stark contrast, as the careful observer can see—is also repeatedly revealed to us. We need only recall Schiller’s words about fire, already mentioned on another occasion:

The power of fire is benevolent
When man tames and guards it
But the power of the heavens becomes terrible
When it breaks free from its bonds
And strides along its own path
The free daughter of nature.

[ 3 ] One might say that such a phrase seems to encapsulate the question that will occupy us today and in the next lecture—the question that has, at various times, been expressed in the terms “hell” and “heaven,” though one must by no means assume that these words, wherever they appear, carry the superstitious meaning that many adherents of these ideas attribute to them, nor, for that matter, by the no less numerous people who, without understanding their deeper meaning, would gladly oppose them today.

[ 4 ] If we look around even briefly, we see that our question already stems from ancient Persian culture, where a realm of good forces—Ormuzd—and a realm of evil forces—Ahriman—are sharply contrasted. And when we see how, in a remarkable mental image, the hidden forces that advance in the world for good are opposed by the hostile forces that hinder their progress—until, in the end, the power of light prevails—we are presented with one of the great images in which human fantasy and imagination clothe our problem. From the Greek Tartarus to the Norse mythological world, a realm of hell confronts us; we encounter names associated with the concept of hell. It is the realm to which all those are condemned who, in the physical world, did not die an honorable death in accordance with the cultural tradition.

[ 5 ] We may notice something peculiar when we recall this legend about the realm of Hell. Let us examine it closely, for let it be said from the outset: Within the guise of the legendary world, there is sometimes a deeper wisdom than that which is explored in our time through abstract concepts.

[ 6 ] It is remarkable how the ancient Norse mythology derives the present state of the world from one realm, “Nifelheim,” filled with cold mist—the Norse land that, according to Germanic belief, was devoid of sunlight in ancient times—and from the other realm, “Muspelheim,” the warm realm. The current state of the Earth arose through the interaction of these two realms. And it was not from the warm Muspelheim, but from the cold, mist-filled Nifelheim that the most important forces now serving humanity were derived. It was there that the higher human forces underlying today’s culture first took shape. At the same time, however—and this is the curious aspect that touches upon our question in a wondrous way—we are told that Hel, who takes the unworthy dead to herself, has been banished by the gods to this realm of mist, where those who have not died a worthy death end up. It is remarkable that the realm and the forces of ascent are brought together with the place and the personality that represent the power of death and decay.

[ 7 ] And when we leave such ancient times behind and turn our attention more to our own era, we find that, above all, those of whom Pochhammer said in his edition of Dante—that they should be teachers of adults just as much as they are educators and teachers of youth—resort to the concept of a world in which evil is concentrated when they seek to explain our existence from the depths of worldly existence. How magnificently and powerfully Dante describes this world to us right at the beginning of his overwhelming poem, which portrays humanity’s purification and journey toward the higher spiritual worlds! And once again, a poet was compelled to draw upon these concepts to depict the forces dwelling within the human soul when Goethe wrote his *Faust*. Thus, he set against that which was to lead Faust to the bright, luminous powers the representative of the infernal powers, Mephistopheles.

[ 8 ] You can find many meaningful sayings in Goethe’s *Faust* that describe Faust’s peculiar relationship with Mephisto and the relationship of both to existence in the world. Let us recall just two of them here in this context, in which—in a manner that is again remarkable and now echoes Norse mythology—Goethe juxtaposes the two concepts of good and evil. One such passage is where Mephistopheles is called “a part of that power which always wills evil and always creates good.” Here, the concepts of good and evil are placed in a very intimate connection with the entire existence of the world. And we must not fail to mention another of Goethe’s sayings, which, on the one hand, leads us deep into Goethe’s soul, but on the other hand also quite deeply into our problem; for it deals with the entire relationship of the forces of good in *Faust* to that which Mephisto seeks to achieve within him—the evil. It is very telling that Goethe has Faust say the following at the very moment when he is about to conclude the pact with Mephisto—the pact that determines the conditions under which he will fall prey to Mephisto: “/p”

Shall I say to the moment:
Stay a while! You are so beautiful!
Then you may bind me in chains,
Then I’ll gladly perish!
Then let the death bell toll,
Then you’ll be free of your duty,
Let the clock stand still, let the hands fall,
Let time be over for me!

[ 9 ] “Shall I say to the moment: ‘Stay a while, you are so beautiful’”—this is an expression that Goethe makes it clear to us Mephistopheles did not understand in its full significance. Yet Faust knows that he can fall prey to the forces of hell only if he finds himself in a position to say to the moment: “Stay a while, you are so beautiful.”

[ 10 ] This should be placed at the beginning of our discussion today, because it can show us the direction in which the subject that concerns us today is guided—on the one hand, by the world of legends, and on the other, by profound human thought clothed in poetic form. Of course, those who believe today that they can construct a complete worldview from a few haphazardly cobbled-together concepts of the material world will very easily dismiss the concepts of hell and heaven; after all, they are not concerned with what we have now placed at the forefront of our reflection. They simply say: We need only trace the path of development of the various religions and childlike worldviews, and it will become clear to us that either the peoples themselves, in their distress, or certain individuals invented what is called heaven and hell—partly to comfort the peoples for the suffering they endure on earth, and partly to spur them on, through fear of hell, to turn their selfish impulses toward the good.

[ 11 ] Anyone who speaks this way knows nothing of the true reasons and motives behind the way in which concepts such as heaven and hell have been instilled in people’s hearts and minds.

[ 12 ] Today we will not seek an answer to the question that humanity has always asked itself in some random collection of observations, images, judgments, and lines of reasoning; rather, we want to draw insights into what can be said about this question from what, in a certain sense, formed the basis of all our winter lectures.

[ 13 ] Let us recall the lecture I was allowed to give here on the topic “Man, Woman, and Child.” In it, we were able to speak of humanity’s great development on Earth and learn about the various forces that play a role and have a say in human development. If we survey this human development from the perspective of spiritual science—as we were able to say at that time—then, in order to gain a sense of it, we will draw on the way in which the spiritual scientist observes the developing child, how it appears before us from the very first moments of its life in the light of day and increasingly brings its powers and abilities to light.

[ 14 ] Anyone who observes this developing human being with a perspective sharpened by spiritual science can see how the child’s abilities unfold in a fascinating way from their very beginnings. A materialistically minded science would have us believe that what gradually emerges so charmingly into the light can be attributed solely to traits inherited from parents, grandparents, or other ancestors. The term “heredity” plays a major role in this question today. It has often been pointed out that spiritual science today is compelled to play a role that, not too long ago—for it was less than three hundred years ago—was played by a great natural scientist: the Italian naturalist Francesco Redi. He was the first to articulate something that is now common knowledge among both laypeople and scholars. In his day, however, it was not only the belief of laypeople but also that of all naturalists that from inanimate matter—from river mud—not only lowly animal beings but also earthworms, fish, and so on could arise. Today it is believed that it was merely religious prejudices that prevented people from attributing all things to a purely mechanical world order. However, it was not merely the secular scholars—of whom there were only a few at that time—who assumed that living things could arise from non-living matter; even Saint Augustine held this view. You can see from this that holding such a view was by no means at odds with Saint Augustine’s religiosity.

[ 15 ] But what, then, contradicts such an assumption? A genuine observation—both external and internal—that delves into the depths of worldly existence; physical, rather than supernatural, experience of things. It was physical, rather than supersensory, experience that gradually led people to the statement later made by Redi: Life can arise only from life. — Modern spiritual science finds itself today in the same situation in which the natural scientist Redi once found himself—and he only narrowly escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno. The statement that is disputed today is applied here to the spiritual realm and reads: “The spiritual can arise only from the spiritual.” — What we first see developing from the potentials of the infant’s embryo cannot be traced back to physical processes. We trace it back to the spiritual, just as we trace the living back to life. And then the spiritual leads us back to a spiritual-soul aspect. When we see this spiritual-soul aspect clothed, as it were, enveloped by those characteristics that are linked to the physical or to the other sheaths of the human being, then we trace only this physical aspect—which colors and qualifies the spiritual and soul capacities and characteristics—back to the entire line of heredity as it appears to us in parents, grandparents, and so on. If people repeatedly seek to draw our attention to how, in the line of inheritance, characteristics gradually accumulate and ultimately manifest in a descendant, we say that this does not surprise us at all from the standpoint of spiritual science. We find it self-evident that the characteristics of physical heredity appear in the bodies in which the spiritual seed manifests. For how do we view this physical heredity? Let us take the following example:

[ 16 ] We take a plant seed and plant it in fertile soil containing all kinds of nutrients that can abundantly nourish the plant. And then we plant that same seed in another type of soil that contains only a meager amount of the nutrients the plant needs. The plants embody the characteristics of the soil from which they have sprung. Thus we see the plant unfolding what is its own deeper origin—its plant seed—and, on the other hand, we see that which develops and unfolds this plant seed, in which it is enveloped, that which is attached to and infused from the soil and ground from which the plant has sprung. And so the human being, like the plant from an earlier plant, has sprung from a spiritual-soul aspect of antiquity. He has grown on soil that has been prepared through the line of inheritance, and this spiritual-soul germ also contains qualities that it brings with it from the soil of the line of inheritance. We are not surprised that the entire process is as it is and appears to the external, physical observer of the world in such a way that he could fall into the errors indicated. When it is said that one should observe how the characteristics of ancestors accumulate in a particularly gifted individual, and that a musician comes from a family of musicians and a mathematician from a family of mathematicians, the spiritual scientist need not in any way deny these things or present them in a different light. From the perspective of spiritual science, the matter is as follows:

[ 17 ] There are vast periods of time during which our spiritual-soul nature arises again and again. In spiritual research, we speak of repeated earthly lives when we say that our spiritual-soul nature points us back to earlier lives in which the spiritual seeds for our present life were sown. Everything we now possess, and everything we now attain, will unfold in the future and take effect. This spiritual-soul seed has nothing to do with what is passed down through the physical line. When a human being enters into existence, this spiritual-soul seed enters the physical body, and this physical body, which the human being inhabits, is built up by the forces inherited from the family. Thus, a duality is indeed woven together within the human being, one aspect of which—the spiritual-soul aspect—can be traced back to a purely spiritual line of evolution, while the other—the physical aspect—can be traced back to the inherited line of evolution. Inheritance and reincarnation are the two factors that interact here, a fact that is entirely evident from any meaningful consideration. But look—it is then said—at how one ancestor possesses these qualities and another possesses those. Ultimately, these qualities accumulate and give rise to a Goethe or a Beethoven. And geniuses usually appear at the end of a long line.

[ 18 ] Let us consider this statement: Genius appears at the end of a generational line. — It is strange that genius is attributed to heredity simply because it possesses a body organized for genius. If the Bernoullis keep producing mathematicians, it’s clear that they need special bodies for that purpose. It’s not surprising that when the mental and spiritual seed sinks into what constitutes the hereditary line—into what serves as the soil for the mathematical mind—it also brings these characteristics with it. Or is it surprising that someone who goes into the water comes out wet? So it goes without saying that when someone is born into a family, they carry the family’s characteristics within them.

[ 19 ] So what the quoted sentence can really mean is something self-evident, something utterly trivial. But how would one prove that genius itself is hereditary? By the fact that it would be at the beginning—and not at the end—of a generational line! If it stands at the end, that is proof that it is precisely the traits of genius that are not inherited! It is indeed a strange way of reasoning when one says that one can see that traits are inherited, and then adds the claim that genius stands at the end of a lineage. Sound logic can only conclude that genius, by reincarnating, cannot pass on its spiritual qualities; for otherwise, it would have to be at the beginning of the generational line. This brings us to two lines of development: one spiritual and one physical. If one does not accept this, then even sound logic fails to provide a satisfactory explanation.

[ 20 ] We see a child who, centuries ago, lived another life, unfolding and making use of the qualities now available to him. Thus we see the child entering life. And how do we see a person leaving life? We have already pointed this out as well. Now let us consider the events that occur when that which has entered physical existence through birth departs from life once more by passing through the gate of death. Here we must consider not only death itself, but also something we have already considered in our previous discussion: the alternating states of sleep and wakefulness, and the alternating states of life and death.

[ 21 ] We know from our previous discussion that when a person sinks into what is called dreamless sleep in the evening, certain parts of their being separate from what we call the true inner self, the innermost essence, the core of the human being. In the sense of spiritual science, we distinguish, in such a sleeping person, that which lies, so to speak, in bed from this core of being. Lying in bed is the physical body, which is surrendered to the elements of the earth at death. But when a person lies in bed, the physical body is not as it is when it is surrendered to the earth. The physical body is still imbued with the etheric or life body. The physical body is alive; its vital functions are maintained, so that both the physical body and the etheric or life body lie in bed. First and foremost, we find the vehicle of pleasure and suffering, of joy and pain, and of all the sensory impressions that ebb and flow throughout the day: heat and cold, smell and taste—the bearer of the entire life of thought and imagination, ranging from instincts and passions to moral ideals. This is what sinks into an indeterminate darkness as we fall asleep. But this is also what returns in the morning like an influx of light. It is the light of consciousness.

[ 22 ] There is one more thing we must distinguish clearly within what is lifted out of the human body—both the physical and the etheric body—during the night: it is human self-consciousness and its bearer, the human “I.” We call the vehicle of pleasure and pain, of instincts and passions, of sensuous sensations that ebb and flow, the astral body; and we call the vehicle of self-consciousness—the fourth member of the human being—the “I.” These two members—the vehicle of the “I” and the vehicle of pleasure and pain—are lifted out of the physical and etheric bodies during dreamless sleep.

[ 23 ] Why, then, can you not perceive in that world? We have found the answer to these questions in our lectures, because, given the current state of human development, the human “I” and the astral body have no organs. Human beings perceive their physical environment through their organs—their eyes and ears. It is only in the morning, when the “I” and the astral body merge into the physical body and make use of these organs, that a person perceives their surroundings. We therefore have a fourfold being: a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I” body. — This is the essence of the alternating states of waking and sleeping.

[ 24 ] But now let us consider the moment of death. We can do this by drawing upon what is a fact for a person who has applied the methods of initiation to themselves and has learned to use the higher senses that lie dormant within the human being. But even ordinary logic can grasp this, because these facts are presented in such a way that they can reveal to us the path of the human being through death. At the moment of death, something occurs that happens only in exceptional cases throughout the entire life between birth and death. Throughout the entire life, the etheric body remains united with the physical body. Only at death does it separate from it, and thereby the physical body becomes a corpse. It now follows the purely physical-chemical forces from which it was shielded between birth and death by the indwelling of the etheric body. This etheric body, as has often been said, is a faithful warrior throughout life against the decay of the physical body; for the physical body contains within itself the chemical and physical forces. This becomes evident when, after death, it is left to its own devices: it decays; it is an impossible mixture. The etheric body separates from the physical body and remains for a while together with the astral body and the “I.”

[ 25 ] This connection is of great importance. Now, at the moment of death, a comprehensive panorama of one’s life thus far—from birth to death—unfolds before the person. It is as if a vast panorama of the life we have lived were standing before our soul. This vision, this picture of memories, is accompanied by a feeling of expansion, of the human being growing larger. It is as if the human being were expanding, and on the inner side, as in a wondrous panorama, the images of the life that has passed were appearing.

[ 26 ] Where does this come from? It comes from the fact that the etheric body is the bearer of memory. As long as it is within the physical body, it is bound to the physical body, and it can only survey what it has experienced in the physical body between birth and death. The physical body is a hindrance. Because the etheric body is an unclouded, pure repository of memory, the entire past appears as a single image after death. People who were close to death—such as during a drowning or a landslide—and experienced a shock recall that, in a single moment, their entire life flashed before their eyes. I could tell you many such stories, but I will only mention what is written in a book I have referred to before. The forensic anthropologist Moritz Benedikt—a man who would regard everything else said here as utter nonsense and fantasy, though that doesn’t matter—recounts that when he was once close to drowning, his entire life stood before his soul like a great painting. What happens in such a case? A spontaneous loosening occurs between the physical body and the etheric body, which is immediately reversed. The result is that the memories of one’s entire life appear before the human soul for a very brief moment.

[ 27 ] So this image of memory stands before the human soul at first. Then comes the time when the etheric body separates once more from the astral body and the I. But a remnant of the etheric body remains connected to the human being—something that could be called the essence of the last life, something like a brief summary. Imagine this brief summary, this essence of life, as if you could artfully condense the contents of a thick book onto a single page—but in such a way that a person could reconstruct the book’s contents from this extract. Something like this essence of life is incorporated into the human being for all the future, after he has shed what he cannot use for his further evolution. Let us take special note of this. What is incorporated into the human being for their future development is the fruit of their last life. Each life forms something like a page in the great book of life, and all our earthly lives are recorded on such a page. They are incorporated into our being. We carry this fruit from one life into all that follow. This fruit is of great significance for the further development of the human being.

[ 28 ] But before we can discuss the significance of this life essence, we must first take a closer look at the further course of human life after death. After this “picture of life” has existed for a very brief time, a different phase begins for the human being after death, which we can characterize as follows. Now the human being has his “I,” his astral body, and this essence I have just spoken of. Let us now consider how the astral body—the bearer of drives, desires, and passions—can function. We can form a conception of this activity of the astral body through logical reasoning. Let us take one of the ordinary experiences—the experience of a gourmet who takes pleasure in a delicious meal. How does this pleasure come about? One might easily be tempted to attribute it solely to the physical body. But that would be absurd. It is not the physical body, but the astral body that is the bearer of desires, pleasure, and suffering. It is the astral body that experiences the pleasure, and it is also the astral body that develops the desire for the delicious meal. The physical body is an apparatus of physical substances, of physical and chemical forces. It provides the means by which the astral body can satisfy these desires. This is the relationship in life between the astral body and the physical body. The astral body cries out for the satisfaction of its desires, and the physical body provides it with the tools—the palate, the tongue, and so on—through which it can satisfy its desires. What happens now at death? The physical body is cast off, and with it all the instruments of satisfaction. The astral body, however, remains, and it is easy to see that this astral body does not simply cast off its craving for pleasure and its desires just because the physical instrument has been taken away. After death, the astral body retains the desire and the craving, even though it lacks the physical instrument through which they can be satisfied. The astral body thus develops a craving for delicious food and so on, but it lacks the palate. Or it is as if a person suffering from a burning thirst were in an environment where there is no water to be found far and wide. The only reason he is unable to satisfy his desires after death is that he lacks the organs to do so. Thus, he suffers pain from these desires until he has completely eradicated them through their unfulfillment.

[ 29 ] This is the period that a person must undergo after death in what is known as Kamaloka. Kama means desire, and Loka means place. This is a metaphor. Only then does the time of suffering come to an end, when a person has eradicated the desire and addiction that are rooted in the astral body and can only be satisfied in the physical world. It is a time of weaning and purification.

[ 30 ] But if we now ask ourselves whether this period of purification can occur to varying degrees, we must answer: Yes! — Let us take two people: one who is completely absorbed in sensual pleasures, whose life from morning to night is filled with every possible pleasure that can be experienced only in the physical world, where the means to satisfy them are available. He identifies his entire inner being with his physical body. A person who identifies in this way with the physical body will have a more difficult existence after death than one who, even in this life, sees through the sensory things to what is supersensory, spiritual, and soulful. Take, by contrast, someone who contemplates a beautiful landscape or a musical composition. Even in the smallest, most insignificant things, a person can see a manifestation of the spirit. People often choose a beautiful landscape or a fine piece of music as an example because it makes the concept easier to illustrate. The person who hears the mysteries of the eternal in the world resounding through the harmonies and melodies of a musical composition, who can allow the spiritual harmonies and relationships in a beautiful landscape to take effect upon their soul—such a person, as a spiritual-soul being, already in this life between birth and death breaks free from what is bound to the physical. And that which thus shines through the physical, that which is thus perceived as resonating through the physical, is a possession that remains with us and for which we need not undergo any purification or weaning; for what falls away from us is merely the outer garment. Think for a moment, deep within yourself, about how something that is purely spiritual reveals itself in a musical work. Its relationship to the sensory manifestations is no different from the fact that it is hidden within them and penetrates you through the medium of sensory manifestation. This is something that belongs to the spirit, to the soul, and from which a person need not tear themselves away after death.

[ 31 ] As you can see, there are varying degrees of what must be endured, and these degrees depend on the extent to which a person has identified with what they can experience and enjoy in the physical world solely through their senses.

[ 32 ] Now, there is, so to speak, a perspective that certainly need not be an immediate, real reality in the present for any human being, because there is no human being in whom the conditions for this perspective are fully met. But it does exist. Let us take a person who devotes his entire self completely to that which can be experienced only through the physical body and its organs in connection with the physical external world, who has lost himself entirely to this sensory external world and who would have no interest whatsoever—absolutely none—in what underlies this sensory external world as spiritual and soul content; a person who looks only toward the earth and identifies solely with what shapes his body. What will be the consequence? We can recognize this if we explore the mysteries of the human being even more closely.

[ 33 ] If we wish to do this, we must consider to some extent what a human being takes with them as the life essence of their etheric body. What becomes of what they take with them as life essence? From this fruit of their previous life, the human being builds their next incarnation—the body of their next life. For what appears to us as the human being who gradually unfolds is indeed a product of heredity. But these products of heredity are, in a certain sense, elastic. The human being does not merely allow his body to be built up from hereditary traits; rather, what he has brought with him from previous lives works and weaves within him, as in an elastic physicality. Thus, in a human being, we see, in addition to the inherited characteristics, the fruits of past lives—and of all past lives—woven into the fabric of their being. And when we ask ourselves: What is the consequence of a human being living in this way from incarnation to incarnation? — we can say: The consequence is what we might call the human being’s path of perfection through earthly lives. Upon entering earthly life, human beings entered their first incarnation with powers that were primitive in comparison to the powers at work in most people today. When they entered their first incarnation, human beings had only a small amount of soul power through which they could direct the soul into the physical and etheric bodies. Then they reaped the fruits of their first life, carried the fruits of that first life forward, and as a result, the next life could become a more perfect one. For by knowing how to add the experiences of subsequent lives to the limited powers they possessed during their first existence, human beings create for themselves—insofar as these powers are taken into account—an ever more perfect, self-contained, and harmonious earthly existence. Each new life appears to us to be on a higher level. But here you see two forces interacting. You see, after a person has passed through the gate of death, the essence of life—the forces of the previous life—which are preserved for the future, the forces that can make the person ever more perfect. Thus, from life to life, the power of the ever-perfecting human being is multiplied. But at the very moment when the “I” leaves the physical body, you see the forces that repeatedly bind it to the past physical existence. In fact, human existence after death consists of what we might call the evolving forces and what we might call the inhibiting forces that take shape within them.

[ 34 ] Now let us briefly consider once more these inhibiting forces we have spoken of—those things that a person must tear out of themselves root and branch after death. If nothing else were to come into play, a person would, after death, be equipped solely with the fruitful forces for future existence that they have brought with them from their past life. True, a person breaks free from everything that, so to speak, chains them to past lives; they break free from all desires and all cravings. But there is one thing from which they cannot tear themselves away. A remnant remains. What appears after death as a remnant that a person must tear out of themselves is prepared between birth and death. It is not present when a person enters life. After entering life, the person grows into the physical world, and their attachment to the pleasures of the physical world presents itself as something that the person first acquires in the course of this life—something they first draw into their being. Now we can form the idea that what a person gradually draws into their being is something that does not contribute to their further development—something that would even make this further development impossible if they were entirely at the mercy of these forces. Because human beings bring all of this into their lives and because it has the potential to be absorbed by life, it is life itself—the period between birth and death—that carries these inhibiting forces into human beings. On the one hand, it gives us the life experience that we take with us as a fruit; on the other hand, it forges us together with the physical world, which we then carry within us continuously. It is that which, on the one hand, seeks to lift us above embodiment, and on the other, brings us back into this world again and again, until we have reached the point where, at the end of our existence, we have completely overcome everything that binds us to the physical world. Thus, human beings constantly have within them one force that propels them forward and another that is inhibiting and retarding. We see human existence as composed of these two forces: one that propels us forward and one that holds us back.

[ 35 ] You can see in detail how these forces—some promoting development and others hindering it—interact. Take, from ordinary life—the seemingly physical realm—the human eye. The eye is, as Goethe says, “formed by light for light.” If we did not have an eye, we would not see the light. But if light were not there, the eye would not exist either. It is light that has developed the eye. By creating the eye, light simultaneously creates an inhibition of the development and the developmental current that preceded it. Because light acted upon the human body in the distant, primeval past, this eye was drawn forth from it. To do this, it first had to inhibit the life force—which would otherwise have been sprouting and budding in a different direction. Only after the long-term influence of the other forces will the eye be ready to become an organ that propels evolution forward once more. Thus, you can see from this example that the inhibitions—the counteracting forces—are absolutely necessary.

[ 36 ] Now we see how wonderfully wisely human life is arranged, with the forward-driving force of evolution on the one hand, and the counteracting forces on the other. It is these restraining forces that bind the human being to the physical world, providing him, in the physical world between birth and death, with the organs through which he regains the strength for progress. Were the restraining forces not present, the human being would not enter into the life between birth and death, nor would he grow into the sheaths through which the spiritual-soul aspect appears to him. Now he acts through the life that is created out of the restraining forces. Thus, human beings owe the fruits of progress to the restraining forces.

[ 37 ] Therein lies a great mystery: that in life, the forces of progress must interact with the forces of inhibition. Now, it may be that a person maintains a balance within their being between the forces of progress and the inhibiting forces, or that in a single life they become completely identified with the inhibiting forces, so that they eventually become entirely entangled with the forces that are generated in the physical body solely as a means of progress, but which they regard not as a means, but as an end in itself, as something in and of itself. In this case, the human being’s spiritual-soul aspect would tear itself away from all progress. It would fall away, and what would be the Kamaloka period—the time of weaning and purification, consisting in the human being shedding what connects him, in a minor way, to the physical world—would become something absolute. This stands before us as an extreme. But because human beings never become completely fused with the sensory world, because they are able to withdraw from this extreme prospect in their soul life, in their inner being, they will escape the extreme. But if it were the case that his interest never clung to what shines through as spiritual-soul life—which stands as a prospect but is not attained in this life—then this would intrude into the active forces of life and result in the human being, through his entanglement with the physical-sensory world, tearing himself away from all that is spiritual-soul life. Let us assume this case for a moment. Now, after death, the human being is to be transported into the spiritual-soul world. He brings nothing with him into the spiritual-soul world but an invincible attachment, an invincible entanglement in and with the physical-sensory world. This memory now clings to him and weighs him down like a leaden burden. The human being brings this hardened materiality—transformed into the spiritual—into the spiritual world. He is inseparably bound to the forces that halt and hinder all development and all evolution. This is the concept of a hellish existence. Therefore, in the ultimate perspective, the period of purification expands into that state where, lacking any understanding of the spiritual-soul world, the “I” has become attached to the purely physical-sensual realm and brings with it nothing but an understanding of the physical-sensual. This understanding of the physical-sensual realm is the torment of hell in the spiritual realm, even if it may be an infinitely satisfying sensual pleasure in sensual existence.

[ 38 ] And now let us try to understand Faust’s words mentioned above. If the emissary from Hell wants to take him, what must be achieved? What must be achieved is that Faust does not extract the seed of further development from the moments of physical existence, but rather that he devours himself so deeply into these moments of physical existence that he wants to hold on to them within his own sensuality. “If I were to say to the moment: ‘Stay a while, you are so beautiful...’”—then you’ve got me! This is the pact that a human being can make with the forces of Hell: to ally himself with the forces that hinder progress. But at the same time, we see that human evolution could not have unfolded any other way than for these hindering forces to come into being.

[ 39 ] Next time, we will examine what human beings were like when they first appeared in a physical body, and where they brought it from. We now know that human beings are composed of forces that strive forward and forces that tend to retreat. If, when the human being first entered the physical body, he had possessed no restraining forces, he would have remained in the spiritual form he had before incarnation. Because the restraining organs developed within him, the spirit penetrated into the sensory realm and was able to take the fruits of the sensory world with him, enriching himself more and more. The forces from which progress springs are precisely those that must first create the organs of progress. They must inhibit earlier development so that later development becomes possible. No one has the right to complain about the inhibitory aspects of life. That which is a blessing—the conservative element—as long as it serves humanity, becomes a stumbling block when it is made an end in itself. So it is also after life, in death. Viewed in the service of the spirit, the stumbling block is the highest bearer of progress. But if it is regarded as an end in itself or used selfishly, then it is the seed of hell. Thus, that from which all human abilities on this earth spring—if a person connects with it at the wrong time—can become an end in itself, the seed of hell.

[ 40 ] Now we understand the Nordic legend. The spiritual seed of our present culture sprang from the Land of Mist. It had to pass through the ancient cultures, but it also had to transcend them by bringing the fruits of those cultures into the present incarnation. Those people who do not make use of the present incarnation in a spiritual-soul sense condemn themselves to being cast back to a stage that was beneficial in its own way, that was a means of progress in its time, but which now has a hindering effect. Thus, what was once a means of progress, if it persists in human existence, becomes a hellish element. Nebelheim was not always ruled by hell. The good elements within humanity held Nebelheim in check until the time when they had developed themselves out of it.

[ 41 ] Thus we see good and evil, the hellish and the heavenly, truly intermingling in human life and flowing forth from it together, as is stated in the aforementioned poem by Schiller: The benevolent becomes a consuming, inhibiting element if it is not used in the right way—just as fire is benevolent when man controls it, while it can become terrible when it “breaks free from its bonds and marches on its own path.” Likewise, the hellish forces also make their appearance when they stride “on their own path” through human life.

[ 42 ] Thus we understand why the great minds who conceived or sensed such profound connections thought and felt the very same things that spiritual science presents to our souls. If today we have recognized the hellish element as something necessary for our lives, next time we will come to know even more intimately the element that will shed light on the whole. In the light of true spiritual science, we will also come to know the luminous heavenly element. But even from today’s lecture, we can see that what Dante expresses in the last line of his canto on Hell is true. Dante, too, believed he had to first contemplate the strong, restraining forces in life before forming a conception of those progressive forces in which all salvation and all human development lie. We, too, will gain insight after insight for ordinary, everyday life if we are able to bring regression and progress into the right balance. It will become clear where what holds a person back threatens to become hellish, and where it proves beneficial by rising to become the truly forward-moving forces, just as Dante describes it when, under Virgil’s guidance, he finds himself beguiled by hellish powers, but then emerges victorious over all restraining forces, and to him, whose soul is “swollen with joy,” the shining stars appear in the distant vault of heaven.